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Jack Rowand/CW Network

Britt Robertson, left, and Shiri Appleby in “Life Unexpected.” Cast members were on edge awaiting the show’s fate.

For the last month the CW show she created, “Life Unexpected,” has sat “on the bubble”: in television industry parlance, the stressful time when networks decide whether to renew shows. Trying to convey what it’s like,
she said: “I kind of imagine it’s like wanting people to love your kid. You don’t want people telling you your kid is ugly and not good enough.”

In other words, the process is deeply personal for thousands of writers, producers and actors, a fact often lost in the breathless talk about new television shows during the annual upfront week, which just concluded in New York.

“It’s about getting another year to do something you love,” Ms. Tigelaar said. “Or about looking for a new job.”

This week her story had a happy ending. On Thursday she was in New York to celebrate the order for a second season of “Life Unexpected.” “I feel like a proud parent,” she said, grinning.

But just 72 hours earlier, on the last full day of an attempted vacation in Mexico, she was on the verge of tears, knowing she would soon find out whether she had lost her job and whether all of her work was for naught.

“Have officially reached the point where I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE,” she wrote on Facebook.

At the beginning of May, she had agreed to let a reporter follow the process as she waited for word from CW. The network had already renewed most of its series, so “Life Unexpected” was one of the few remaining question marks.

“It’s a game of musical chairs, and you just hope that by the end of it, you’re sitting in one,” she said in one of the interviews this month.

Ms. Tigelaar, 34, is within CW’s target demographic of women ages 18 to 34, and she speaks much as the characters on the network’s shows do, invoking “like” in every other sentence and “oh my God” nearly as often.
“Life Unexpected,” about a teenager who was never adopted and first meets her parents at age 15, is the first series she has created. It had its premiere in January.

“Life Unexpected” is the kind of show that television executives like to say has “heart,” but some of those same executives worried about the show’s chances from Day 1. Its intimacy is emblematic of a CW predecessor,
the WB network, rather than of the high-energy, glitzy style of current CW shows like “Gossip Girl” and “90210.”

Ms. Tigelaar said she started work on Season 2 “the moment Season 1 wrapped production back in February.” But there’s only so much a producer can do before the staff is rehired for another season.

Last winter, when actors would ask Ms. Tigelaar when to expect a decision, she would answer, “When are the upfronts?” She had circled on her calendar the date, May 20, when CW would announce a fall schedule.

From a ratings point of view, “Life Unexpected” deserved to be on the bubble. It averaged 2.3 million viewers an episode, a far cry from the 4.5 million for another CW series, “The Vampire Diaries.” David Stapf, the president
of CBS Television Studios, which produces the show, said, “It’s going to take awhile for viewers to find it,” but added that he had been gratified by the critical praise.

By mid-April, a month before the upfront week, hiring on prospective shows was well under way, and cancellation rumors were already swirling. Occasionally during the long wait this spring, social networking sites added to Ms. Tigelaar’s stress
level. Fans would tweet to her en masse when Web sites posted bad news about the show.

After Deadline Hollywood, the Hollywood entertainment industry Web site run by Nikki Finke (deadline.com), said on May 2 that “Life Unexpected” was
in competition with another CW bubble show, “One Tree Hill,” for a renewal, Ms. Tigelaar vented on her Facebook page for fans, not bothering to contain her frustration.

“No need to alert me to bad news,” she wrote. “In case we come back for Season 2, it would be better if I didn’t leap off a cliff during the waiting process.” She concluded the message, “16 more days.”

She remarked in an interview, “It’s like waiting for someone to break up with you — you don’t need a play by play.”

During the first week of May the “Life Unexpected” producers pitched CW executives on their plans for a second season. “It’s your last chance to have any control over anything,” Ms. Tigelaar said. Then the wait resumed.

Last week she took off for Mexico, where her cellphone was blissfully inoperative. But the outside world was still close by: while she floated in the pool, her friend Julie Plec would read Twitter updates about the status of shows on other networks. Was
that nice of her, or stressful?

“All nice,” Ms. Tigelaar wrote in an e-mail message. “She’s only reading the good stuff!”

If Ms. Plec, a producer on “The Vampire Diaries,” hadn’t kept Ms. Tigelaar updated, others surely would have. Last Monday, the day she almost teared up at dinner, she sent e-mail messages to the cast and asked, “Is everyone
O.K.?”

The actress Shiri Appleby replied, tongue firmly in cheek: “OMG, I’m having so much fun. I love this part. I’m totally NOT refreshing Nikki Finke every five seconds.”

On Tuesday morning Ms. Tigelaar’s agent told her to call Dawn Ostroff, the president of entertainment at CW, who delivered the good news about the renewal. By Tuesday evening, Ms. Tigelaar had booked a spur-of-the-moment flight to New York for
the announcement. At dinner at the Smith in the East Village the next night, there was a cake with one candle to celebrate the show’s first year.

“Life Unexpected” was paired with “One Tree Hill” on the fall schedule. Ms. Ostroff said at Thursday’s presentation to advertisers that both series had “passionate fans who demanded we bring back these shows.”

Standing outside an upfront party by CW in the meatpacking district on Thursday night, Ms. Tigelaar was asked what story she would write about the television waiting game. She recalled an industry catchphrase.

“The whole time in the pilot process, even through, like, outlining and writing and selling it and producing the pilot, people would never say we were a ‘go’ or alive, but they would say, ‘We’re not dead yet.’ ”

“Basically,” she said, “I feel like we just pulled it out. We’re still not dead yet.”

Stuart Elliott contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on May 22, 2010, on page C3 of the New York edition with the headline: For a Show’s Mother, The Wait Was Labor.